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Narconon lawsuit alleges it’s just a cover for Scientology recruitment

Narconon has long been criticized not only for it’s non-scientific, unsupported regimen for drug treatment but also as a less than secret recruitment channel for Scientology. Now, there is a lawsuit to address this.

For the first eight days, Michael spent time in Narconon’s “Treehouse facility” going through detox for his heroin addiction. For this, the Tarrs claim, “There were no medical professionals in the Treehouse, but only Narconon interns and staff who do not have medical training.”

After this “detox,” he entered Narconon’s two other “components: (1) course materials consisting of eight books by L. Ron Hubbard and (2) a sauna and vitamin program known as the ‘New Detoxification Program.”

According to the lawsuit, a representative of the program, a Mr. Penn, told Tarr that the Narconon program was so effective because of the New Life Detoxification Program. The claim is that patients sweat out residual drug toxins that cause cravings. He also said the program had been scientifically and medically proven as effective.

Yet the complaint states: “Narconon’s ‘New Life Detoxification’ program is identical to the Scientology ritual known as ‘Purification Rundown,’ or the ‘Purif’ which is a part of Scientology’s path to move to a state of ‘Clear” – highest goal for a Scientologist. The rehab program, Tarr alleged, was more like indoctrination into Scientology. Of course, it’s NOT been shown to be effective and has even resulted in several deaths at Narconon clinics. Their claim of a 76 percent success rate is unverified. The treatment at the facility was not successful for Tarr’s son who relapsed after leaving and overdosed. She is asking for her $33,000 back, her life savings, and her son is in a different treatment program.

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3 comments for “Narconon lawsuit alleges it’s just a cover for Scientology recruitment”

Samuel Sprague

February 26, 2014 at 7:15 PM

I worked in a State funded drug rehab facility for a while, it wasn’t much better. It was really an employment device for social workers, the primary objective was to qualify the “client” for as many forms of welfare as possible and to keep them in-house as long as the government largesse continued. There was no treatment per-se, just some silly self-help videos from the 1980’s and semi-regular AA meetings.

Now that Samuel mentions it (and I forget how many times I might have said something like this on DN – apologies if this is a repeat, but this IS my hobby horse), maybe now someone can expose the fact that DUI courts and “drug courts” are just covers for the religious (despite its “spiritual, not religious” claim) group Alcoholics Anonymous. All involved seem to have a blind spot regarding the First Amendment.

While Sam and Ben no doubt have good points about problems with other programs, that should not detract from the fact that the Narconon scam needs taking down, and hopefully with that make a big hole in the scientology (scifiology) ship launched by that arch conman L Ron Hubbard (a.k.a. The Loony Rotten Huckster), and now captained by the equally odious Miscavige (a.k.a. Slappy the Miscarriage).

It is good to see the growth in legal actions against the ‘church’, giving them back some of their own medicine after years when they have used the legal system to try to squash their critics. As always Tony Oretga at The Underground Bunker keeps up a good running commentary on these and other issues related to Scamology.